Islamic Golden Age Debate

The Wikipedia page doesn't seem to support the thesis. One can plausibly argue for quite the contrary, IMHO. In fact, many outstanding scholars in STEM of that era, including a few names in the cited Wikipedia page, were also religious scholars (jurisprudence, theology, hadith etc.). Arabs were so much lost before the advent of Islam that the neighboring Persians and Romans apparently had little to no interest in them. History is more complicated/nuanced of course, but these are import

You seemed to have popped out of the proverbial woodwork and that too of a most malodorous kind.If you want to engage in a discussion on this topic, don't hide behind anonymity, understand properly what has been written and don't use ad hominem attacks.For your edification w.r.t. my comments; there is a lot to unpack but here are the highlights for you to research on :a) Arabs as a Ethnic group who originated in a particular "backward" geographical area.b) Islam a

But that is the thing; it wasn't a two-way street. When a country/culture is conquered by the sword, they don't have a say in how their culture is suppressed/destroyed/distorted; the conqueror can rewrite history as he chooses and that is exactly what has happened with Islam. In fact some folks have called Islam as merely an "Intermediate Civilization" between Greek/Roman and Renaissance periods (see Between Hellenism and Renaissance—Islam, The I

Is this a joke? During the Middle Ages, Europe was a feudal backwater of peasant farmers and small continuously warring kingdoms. Scientific and mathematical knowledge (optics, mechanics, astronomy, medicine, ...) throughout the Muslim world was considerably further developed, and there were well organized and well funded cultural institutions devoted to scientific research (not to mention much wider access to traded luxury goods, more resources devoted to fine arts, greater literary output, muc

The medieval Arab world was the inheritor of a Greco-roman culture that they initially ruled with a light hand as a aristocratic minority. As the Arab and eventually Turkish culture asserted itself and turned inward those remnant disappear. By the time modern fanaticism rose, that brief flourishing had been gone for at least 500 years.

Did you read the article? If you had, you might have noticed the phrase “Hindu-Arabic numerals“ being used. Shockingly, cultures do tend to build on the works of others.The reason it is tagged “Islamic” is presumably because the golden age of Persian/Arabic science happened in unison with the early rise of Islam, along with a blooming of industry and culture in general. This may not have been coincidental. The early Islamic world was a lot more inquisitive and open-minded than the

The mongols sacked Baghdad, killed everyone, and destroyed all institutions of higher learning and the people working in them. Then the age of exploration permanently shifted the center of world power away from the Middle East and the Silk Road. Then European colonial powers subjugated those territories. Afterward, Saudi Arabia started exporting its very "particular" (to put it lightly) branch of Islam. Sprinkle some US intervention and you get to the present day.Not much of a turni

The average person in the Islamic world gets upset if you point out that the "Golden Age of Islam" is more due to the advanced cultures of the countries conquered and appropriated under the Islamic banner. There was quite an advanced world before 7th century AD i.e. before the advent of Islam. Persia, Mesopotamia, The Levant, The Mediterranean, Greece, Turkey, India, China etc. all hosted advanced cultures. Islamic conquest/trade acted as a conduit in the exchange and amplificatio

Perhaps it did.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

In what way? Islam caused that entire region to become a hub of knowledge. A lot of advanced that exist in the West today can be traced back to that era (e.g. the word "Camera" is of Arabic origin).